Think of that! The finest Guild Navigators, men who can quest ahead through time to find the safest course for the fastest Heighliners, all of them seeking me.

With God Emperor of Dune, the story jumps thousands of years ahead as Leto II’s plan to prevent the extinction of humanity reaches its pivotal moment. The result is the Scattering, humanity’s forced spread across the universe. More millennia pass until Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, which tell of tensions that arise among the keepers of Arrakis after waves of refugees return from the Scattering, fleeing from a great enemy. In Hunters of Dune, the Navigator Edrik fears his kind's obsolescence when the Spacing Guild itself (pressured by a shortage of melange) begins funding the development of superior Ixian navigation technology that would not require Navigators. Seeking an alternative source of spice to break the Bene Gesserit monopoly, Edrik meets with Uxtal, the last of the Lost Tleilaxu, hoping that he can rediscover the method of producing melange in axlotl tanks (a secret believed lost when the Bene Tleilax were destroyed by the Honored Matres). However, Uxtal is in the forced service of the Matre Superior Hellica, and her price for his expertise is Edrik's help transporting a certain cargo. He agrees, delivering by heighliner the Obliterators that destroy the planet Richese, where the Bene Gesserit are mass-producing weapons and armed battleships. Uxtal is ultimately unsuccessful, but the ghola he creates of deceased Tleilaxu Master Waff later offers Edrik something better in exchange for sanctuary—the genetic knowledge for the Guild to create their own, optimized sandworms to produce melange. [14] While the Spacing Guild remained a powerful body even after the death of Leto Atreides II, their power gradually eroded over time. By the time of the arrival of the Honored Matres the success of the groups sent out in the Scattering had created new but largely unknown threats to their hegemony. This was because Ixian no-ships, which could perform the same functions of a Guild Navigator, were in common use. As a result, the Guild no longer had a monopoly on space travel. The action: The book begins with two good action sequences that instantly pull one into the novel, followed by a story arc where the writing on the wall on can be seen for forthcoming conflict, though the characters don’t see the whole picture. When the final battle does begin between Venport and Corrino it’s impossible to put the book down. The unexpected betrayals that one character experiences do seem a bit overwhelming as one after another occurs, but I couldn’t stop reading. The action occurs in both space and on the ground, with and without technology, and it’s enjoyable. Overall grade: A- This was a time of existential crisis for human civilization, a historical moment requiring hard decisions: Humanity was still recovering from the long nightmare of enslavement to the thinking machines, followed by the chaos and violence that spawned the reactionary Butlerian movement, rabid fanatics who wanted to purge all vestiges of “evil” technology. By installing a competent man on the throne, Josef had meant to help the human race; instead, he had precipitated an unforeseen disaster.Her direct physical senses were deadened, and Norma no longer cared about taste, touch, or smell. She found it remarkable to see webbing between her fingers and toes. Her face, once blunt-featured and later flawless, now had a small mouth and tiny eyes surrounded by smooth folds. Her head was immense, while the rest of her body atrophied to a useless appendage. Carrying the responsibility of humanity was a burden Manford Torondo did not gladly bear, but he did it nonetheless. What choice did he have? Twisted men like Josef Venport wanted to enslave mankind once more, making the exultant human spirit beholden to machines again! After the end of the Jihad, Rayna Butler—Manford’s beloved mentor and teacher—had guided people along the true path, but such a way was not without violence and resistance, not without those who threw bombs in crowded rallies.… Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Navigators of Dune is the climactic finale of the Great Schools of Dune trilogy, set 10,000 years before Frank Herbert’s classic Dune. Available September 13th from Tor Books!

Roon blinked in disbelief. “But your sister vanished from Lampadas, Sire—during the Butlerian siege of the Mentat School. I would suspect Manford Torondo, but how could you think Venport is responsible for that?” In Chapterhouse Dune (1985), a "very powerful" Navigator is described as "one of the Edrics," suggesting a possible breeding plan or use of a series of ghola based Edric clones. He knew she was right. Josef guided the groundcar over a rise and then down into a broad, bowl-shaped valley filled with hundreds of tanks, each containing one of his Navigator candidates. Cioba leaned over and kissed his cheek as he halted the vehicle amid the sealed tanks. Cymeks had once been the scourge of humanity—disembodied human brains mounted inside armored machine bodies. The original cymeks had been destroyed at the end of Serena Butler’s jihad, but Josef’s brilliant scientists had redesigned and re-created them. Rather than being guided by fallible, power-hungry minds, these new cymeks were controlled by the evolved brains of failed Navigators. Now the mechanical guardians patrolled the area around the Kolhar headquarters, their pistons pumping and sensors alert for any threat.

New in Series

Navigators of Dune is a 2016 science fiction novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. It is the third book in their Great Schools of Dune prequel trilogy, which itself is a sequel to their Legends of Dune trilogy. Set nearly a century after the events of 2004's Dune: The Battle of Corrin, the novel continues to chronicle the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit, Mentat and Suk Schools, as well as the Spacing Guild, all of which are threatened by the independent anti-technology forces gaining power in the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad. The Schools of Dune trilogy, first mentioned by Anderson in a 2010 blog post, chronicles the early years of these organizations, which figure prominently in the original Dune novels.